Retronator

A new game with Octavi Navarro’s art is out! If you’re a fan of his wistful artworks under the name @pixelshuh​, you won’t be disappointed with Photographs.

Developed by Luca Redwood a.k.a. EightyEight games (10000000, You Must Build a Boat), Photographs is an intertwined mix of puzzles and storytelling. Octavi is the perfect illustrator for the beautiful, sad narratives, which are complemented with unique gameplay for each of the five stories the game tells. 

The puzzles are very diverse. At one point you’ll be moving characters around …

… and next time you’re solving a sort of a physics bouncing puzzle.

A full playthrough takes around 3 hours, making the experience very potent, even intense due to its melancholic plots, told through short vignettes instead of lengthy dialogues. 

If you’re after some contemplating gameplay, you can pick up Photographs on Steam (currently 20% off at $10, Windows only) or mobile ($4 on iOS, android coming soon).

I wrote a short post about the code that will bring events in Pixel Art Academy to life in the next server update. It’s all organized like a movie set: there’s a script, a director, actors … Read more about it on my devlog.

Just a quick post in case anyone’s into isometric spaceship colony sims, Space Haven (@spacehavengame) from the Finnish studio Bugbyte is in its last day of the (well overfunded) Kickstarter campaign. The graphics are quite high res and on the side of pre-rendered 3D, but still very charming and fitting to the space theme.

Head over to the campaign page if you want to support the game and get a copy ($20 or more, Windows/macOS/Linux).

ImagineFX magazine did a nice 6-page feature about pixel art titled Power to the pixels. Through interviews with me (@matejjan), Jubilee (@8pxl), Raymond ‘Slynyrd’ Schlitter, and Richard Schmidbauer, writer Dom Carter offers a look at the medium that has outgrown its video game origins. As the magazine’s editor Claire Howlett writes about the article, “The great message from this story is to paint what you love to paint and don’t worry about what others think.”

You can get your own copy of ImagineFX issue 139 in print ($9–15) or digital form ($7, iOS/Android).

Pathway’s release is just around the corner! While there’s no date yet, the development is in its final moments and the game’s publisher Chucklefish (Wargroove, Stardew Valley) released a 10-minute gameplay video from the Wrath of God campaign (second of the five adventures you’ll be able to embark on in Pathway). So if you haven’t heard me rave about the next best turn-based tactical strategy game yet, the new footage shows exactly what we’ll soon be getting into.

Some of you know I’m on my March Indie Eurotrip right now. As a fan of everything pixel art+3D, I made it a special priority to stop in Hamelin, Germany, the home of Pathway developer Robotality. The company was founded by the Bachmann brothers in 2013, with their debut title Halfway coming out in July the following year. In fact, Halfway—as the name similarity hints—already featured quite some of the turn-based combat mechanics you’ll find in Pathway. Everything else is new in the follow-up however, whether it’s navigating a board-game-like map, random-generated story events and encounters, quicker pace designed around replayability, or Indiana Jones/Adventures of Tintin setting.

The crown jewel of course (at least for this blog) is the new graphics engine that supports dynamic 3D lighting with pixel-perfect art assets. I got a peek behind the scenes of the different tools and techniques that the guys use and it’s as clever and complex as I imagined it would be. There are multiple tools and modes that deal with embedding the 3D information into 2D pixel art sprites, from voxel and low-poly 3D-geometry bases (manually pixeled on top with perfect control over texture and details), to ground contours that project the bottoms of the sprites to correct depth for perfect shadow positioning. Perhaps the most surprising part was that almost every scene object eventually ends up converted to pure, untextured polygons (as in, there’s almost no trace of the source pixel art textures in the game at all, pixel clusters get triangulated into different-colored polygon meshes).

Getting my hands on the gameplay was just as satisfying as nerding about the art production pipeline, even if I annoyed the developers by taking my sweet-ass time staring at each location more than actually playing the game. (I have no regrets!)

It’s obvious that I’m head over heels for what Robotality has in store for us. So far I can only say that the game will be out in the first half of this year, but that’s plenty to be excited about. Until then, watching the 10-minute video posted above should help to keep the flames of 3D+pixel art glowing bright.

There are plenty of things to like about The Path to Die. It’s barely pixel art, but what intrigues me is the rarely-used GTA 1 top-down perspective, a solid dynamic lighting engine, rich, visually-striking environments, and a tactile fighting system. The enemies wield everything from katanas to spears, there are bowmen and bosses, and what the analog controls of Skate did for the skateboarding genre, The Path to Die is attempting (in a limited way) for fighting games.

Barcelona-based Cat Logic Games tried to raise funds for the game on Kickstarter almost two years ago and even though they didn’t reach their goal, they kept working on it. That makes me very happy. Sure, parts of the game feel unfinished (character portraits other than the main character are just silhouettes), deaths are not animated, blood squirts as generic particles … It’s a game released on compromises. But it would be a shame if its unique look and gameplay died with its Kickstarter campaign.

If you want to travel to feudal Japan and wield your katana in a quest of revenge, get a copy of The Path to Die on Steam (Windows, $17).

It’s been a while since I gave you an update on Pixel Art Academy. The graphics engine is well underway now thanks to the last 4 months of working on characters, animations, and my drawing/modeling tools.

Today I also integrated a physics engine (I’m NOT writing my own one this time). It’s not really necessary at this point as it’ll be used only to handle character–character collisions, but it does open up some interesting possibilities down the road.

More frequent posts as always on the devlog.

DON’T GIVE UP: A Cynical Tale is no stranger to Kickstarter. The game made its crowdfunding debut in November 2017 under the name Cynical 7 and I loved it! It features a refreshing story about an anxious game developer and his struggles through life, with art that reminded me of my favorite Cartoon Network shows (but in pixels).

The first Kickstarter didn’t make it, but the second one under the new name fittingly did (don’t give up!). The game made a bit over $5k, which is not much even for an indie budget, but the game’s creator Tristan Barona a.k.a. @tacopizzacats made the best of it and brought the game close to completion and demoed it at the recent PAX South. With the warm reception it received, Tristan is running a new Kickstarter for people who haven’t heard of the game before and want to help it get some additional polish in the form of new character portraits, music, and improved boss sprites and animations.

The new campaign page has a lovely interview with the author as well as a demo, so go check that out and possibly grab a copy ($10, Windows/macOS/Linux) to enjoy at the end of the year.

Chained Echoes from coder/artist/designer Matthias ‘Ark Heiral’ Linda is a colorful delight to look at. The game combines your favorite anime subjects—fantasy and mechs—into a world of dragons and technology that you’ll navigate with classical JRPG fashion of exploration and turn-based battles.

The trailer itself is an animated treat with big illustrations that make you excited about customizing your robotic companion and steampunk airships. If this all sounds like a fantastical adventure to you, head over to the game’s Kickstarter page to reserve yourself a copy ($19, Windows/macOS/Linux). Only 4 days left!

inunoya:

December

Just found @inunoya​, a Japanese pixel artist. They seem pretty new to tumblr, so check out their artworks and give them a follow!

Wow, is Wireframe magazine something special!

Coming out of Raspberry Pi Press in both online (free) and print form ($4 + shipping), it focuses on video games, but in the spirit of 80s computer magazines—inside you won’t find just game reviews and developer features, but also good old type-ins with technical articles on various game development topics.

The fortnight publication is currently on issue 7 and brings with it a decent amount of retro-stylized content as well.

There’s a feature of Nick Walton’s PICO-8 RPG Notemon, …

… Damjan ‘Rhuantavan’ Mozetič talks about his 90s-inspired RPG Call of Saregnar, …

… and we get a glimpse of cyberpunk adventure Tales of the Neon Sea.

Wireframe magazine is published under a Creative Commons license, so load it up on your computer or tablet for free, or order the print version for an even more authentic 80s reading experience. All the profits go to Raspberry Pi Foundation, so you’re even helping the world to have more affordable computers (and you know I love a good Raspberry Pi).

If you wanted to double-down on Lunark, @johanvinet​‘s Flashback-inspired cinematic platformer, now is the time. 

As a Valentine’s Day special, 3 new tiers are available on the game’s Kickstarter page, each giving you another digital copy of the game for $13 extra. This way you can game together with your BFF or get yourself both a PC and a Switch copy. Oh yeah, Switch was confirmed!

If you want to get a better feel for the game’s chill gameplay, check out a full playthrough of the prototype:

Great music, sounds and ambience complement small details such as dirt falling off platforms, and birds scattering after shooting a gun. Together with the small resolution and distinct color palette, this is one of the sharpest art directions I’ve seen in a while!

Make this game a reality here.

I’ve been waiting to write this post for … I don’t know, 4 years? That’s why I’m that much more delighted to finally tell you that Pixel Logic: A Guide to Pixel Art (@pixel-logic), a digital book that started its way on Indiegogo all the way back at the end of 2014, is finally fully released! 

Written by Michael ‘@michafrar’ Azzi (and a dozen of guest artists … @unseven, @jinndevil, @pixosprout to name just a few), Pixel Logic is your ultimate tome of knowledge about all things specific to the art of tiny squares.

Weighing in at 242 pages, Pixel Logic spans 9 chapters which quickly leave introductory basics behind for a deep dive into things that make pixel art a unique art form: anti-aliasing, dithering, sub-pixeling, and less talked about—but just as crucial—topics of readability and clean-up. 

While it won’t teach you how to draw in terms of shading and anatomy (for that you can use hundreds of resources on art fundamentals out there already), the book does attack foundational areas that matter a great deal in video games, namely graphical projections and animation.

All topics are neatly illustrated with Michael’s art, guest artists’ work, useful diagrams, and plenty of examples from classic and modern pixel art games. Thanks to the colorful design by Jenna ‘@cyanatar​’ Brown, working your way through the content is just as charming as it is super useful.

If you ever wanted all major areas of pixel art knowledge neatly gathered in one place, your wish has been granted (and then some). Pixel Logic is available in both English and French for the very affordable price of $9 or more, and even comes with an enhanced PDF of the Animation chapter that has GIFs embedded right into the book. You can get the first chapter as a free preview, in case you want to get a taste before you buy.

This is now a must-have in your artist arsenal, right next to the $1 kindle title Learning Pixel Art, which I also always recommend for intermediate/advanced pixel artists. It’s not the end of the story for pixel art books though; Make Your Own Pixel Art by Jennifer Dawe is already looming on the horizon. See you back in March!

(via pixel-logic)

Update on my pixel art/3D modeling tool I’m making to create art for Pixel Art Academy.

I started building the first location for the game, Retronator HQ Art Gallery. Note that the scene is all hand-painted with pixels and not done with traditional 3D software. My algorithm creates the 3D model based on surface normals automatically and since the result is indeed in 3D, I can then apply any kind of camera transitions to the scene. The video above is a test of such camera movements that I just finished implementing.

More details about how everything works can be found on the devlog.

If you’ve been following development of Pixel Art Academy (here’s the devlog), you know I’ve been making my own tools to draw art for the game. Today is the first time I’ve used the sprite editor to just practice drawing.

I’ve devised a study plan for myself to become better at art in 2019, specifically I want to start drawing solar punk concept art. More about my plan here, and you can follow my progress daily on Instagram. The other day I started studying architecture styles and today I drew this building from Çatalhöyük, which was a Neolithic settlement in Turkey around 7000 BC.

My editor has infinite undo/redo, which means I can output a timelapse of the drawing process:

I’m also working on an advanced version of my drawing tool, called 3D Paint, that will eventually be able to draw realtime shadows, ambient occlusion, reflections, etc. This sprite was not drawn in that tool yet, but it was already painted in a way that is compatible with it. In particular, all the surfaces are dynamically shaded based on the direction they are turned towards (a.k.a. their normal vectors). This allows me to change the lighting of the scene on the fly:

Right now ambient occlusion is faked (hand-painted) and there are no cast shadows since full 3D geometry information isn’t there. But when I get 3D Paint fully operational, expect some more cool stuff.